


Flufftober Day 4: Wounded

by GuyOfShy



Series: Locked Tomb fics [9]
Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: F/F, Flufftober, Flufftober 2020, Injury, Mild Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:08:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26814877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GuyOfShy/pseuds/GuyOfShy
Summary: Prompt: WoundedGideon grieved her own incompetence as she dressed Harrow’s wound, wondering: what good is the cavalier that allows their necromancer to be injured?
Relationships: Gideon Nav/Harrowhark Nonagesimus
Series: Locked Tomb fics [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1937449
Comments: 3
Kudos: 58
Collections: Flufftober2020





	Flufftober Day 4: Wounded

It was very well possible that Gideon felt worse about this single scar on Harrow’s shoulder than Harrow felt about the dozen she had given Gideon thus far in their lives.

Gideon grieved her own incompetence as she dressed the wound, wondering: what good is the cavalier that allows their necromancer to be injured?

And the injury was grievous. A nasty, deep, serrated cut from a hefty, strangled whip of bone off a construct had knocked Harrow to the floor when it hit her. Gideon saw it collide, watched the left side of her body fling back faster than her right, witnessed the blood of her adept spill on the metal tile before her body crumpled onto it. Later, it bruised purple around the edges, contrasting the ghastly shades of pink-red in the wound. Gideon was thankful that she hadn’t dislocated it, or worse.

"This is going to sting," Gideon warned her, indicating a magnitude of stinging greater than what she was already experiencing.

Gideon did not give Harrow time to mentally prepare herself because physical pain undermined short-term, hastily constructed mental fortitude without fail, and Harrow had never experienced pain that seared to this degree before in her life. Gideon dabbed the yellowed-paper-colored medicinal cream Teacher had given her as deftly as possible in and around it the chasm of raw, sensitive flesh; she was no expert, having learned only by licking her own wounds in the dark of her cell in Drearburh.

Harrow's reaction was minuscule but vivid and intense: a violent shudder forced into stillness, a clench of her jaw tight enough that Gideon heard her teeth grate. A sharp exhale shot out of her nose once Gideon finished, and she looked at her own arm with no small amount of horror that she quarantined away from her face to whatever basement or corner in her mind where she squashed her trauma.

"You can cry, Harrow."

"What makes you think that-"

"You're chewing on your own teeth, dumbass. More than normal."

Gideon saw, in her perspective, Harrow's face paint smear in a pastel smudge as a tear washed through the pigment. While Gideon finished dressing and wrapping the wound Harrow unabashedly let more drops slip down her cheeks and blur the black and white that it ran over. Gideon sighed and looked at the miserable sight that was Harrow crying, feeling her heart crack under the weight. 

Gideon’s voice came out a trifle choked as she said, "Harrow, I'm so s-"

"Do not. Do not dare apologize to me. I am already at least a dozen in debt to you, and for far more belligerent and selfish crimes. Please, do not burden me with another."

Gideon swallowed what she wanted to say, knowing that this hurt Harrow's heart more than it hurt her own.

"You're really strong. You know that?"

"I've never considered it."

"I have,” said Gideon, standing and holding her arms out. “Hug me."

Harrow closed her eyes, breathed deep, and leaned into her.

“Thank you, Gideon. I could not trust anyone else to do this.”

That in itself was perhaps even more tragic. Gideon held Harrow close, patting her head, stroking her hair, while she cried a murky and smudged skull into her cavalier’s cloak.


End file.
